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Personally I’d go with the most experienced team he can put out & in the knowlegde that Bobby will persist with 4-5-1:
Al Habsi in goal
Stam needs time to gel with his team mates in competitive football so he should start
Its clear that Gohouri & Alcaraz need time together to form an understanding so they should start
Figueroa looks shocking at the moment so he should be given a rocket up his ‘arris & told if he lets us down tonight he’ll be dropped. If he’s unfit I’d be wanting to see the young left back we have given a chance (is that Mustoe?)If Moses is fit I’d wanna see him given a go in “the hole” & if not then Gomez. With N’Zogbia & Rodallega given a reminder that they’re still latics players so go & deal with this wet, cold & windy north east night & stop dreaming of your “big move”
I’d go with McCarthy & McArthur in the middle & Boselli up front to try & get his confidence & goal scoring a kick startIn the WEP tonight Bobby says he’ll only make 3-4 changes so I make that the keeper, the left back, the midfielder (McArthur in place of Diame or Thomas) & “the hole” player Moses/Gomez
Don’t think I’ll be too far wrong with that although knowing Bobby it’ll be more likely that he’ll bring Moses in for either N’Zogbia or Rodallega with McCarthy in that more advanced role he was given on Saturday
I think everyone can accept that latics need to sell to survive but for me personally the conduct of Whelan in January 2009 still sticks in my throat
My hopes as a Latics fan have never been higher & Whelan (for all he’s done in the past) crushed any public perception of the club as ambitious beyond “staying up”.
Some 20 months later I can still see no reason for selling Heskey & Palacios (& offering Valencia the chance to go) when they did. It would have made far more sense to keep hold of the players until the summer, possibly qualify for Europe & used the lure of Europan football to attract a higher calibre of replacement for those players. As it was, Whelan looked short term & cost the club more in prize money than they got for flogging Heskey, we got a dreadful back end of the season, it ultimately cost Latics their manager & coaching staff (and look what its been replaced with!!!) and public interest in latics in Wigan has been drifting ever since
If Latics hadn’t qualified for Europe then those players could/would have been sold anyway & all it would have cost us would have been heskey’s feeI think the mess we’re in now can be traced back to Whelan’s decisions that month
We’ve always lost badly to United, bar that match after the League Cup final when we were very unlucky not to come out of it with a drawWe haven’t always lost badly to United. Under Steve Bruce we had the 2-0 defeat at home (the day United sealed winning the league) where I thought Latics were superb & should have been 1-0 via a penalty & United down to 10 men (the ref bottled it big time) before United eventually went 1-0 up & then sealed it late on.
The season after we went to Old Trafford & got beat 1-0 from a 1st minute Wayne Rooney goal in a game that Ferguson described at the time as the “hardest we’ve had all season.
In the reverse fixture at the JJB we were 1-0 up through Rodallega at half time & looking good before United stole all 3 points late onI get your point – I just don’t think that anyone seriously wants or expects the club to refund their tickets when its been a poor game
When pushed most Latics fans will accept that their season tickets (& matchday prices) are the best value ones in the top flight – regardless of the dross currently being dished up
Griff’s as entitled to his opinion as anyone else I guess but I do have trouble understanding how someone could prefer to see us “try” to play Bobby’s style of football as opposed to what we saw under Bruce but each to their own I guess
I think that unfortunately Bruce’s reign is badly tainted by what happened post-Tottenham home game during his last season in charge where lets not forget we only won three times in 18 games, scoring a mere 10 goals. A record which if carried over the course of a season would have only netted us 31 points & 21 goals. It was IMO increasingly awful to watch
However IMO I also think there a very good reasons behind that slump that can’t really be laid at the blame of the management team.
Bruce didn’t want to sell Heskey or Palacios but was instructed to by Whelan – so you had the midfield dynamo & attacking focus of the team ripped out from under him. Valencia (whilst stating that he wanted to stay) had had his head turned, didn’t wanna ruin his chance of a move to Man United & his “injury problems” returned with avengance
Personally I think Bruce & his management team were completely demoralised by what Whelan instructed them to do & it transferred onto the players – They were paid alot of money so should have been able to cope with that but it would have been hard when one minute you’re looking at strengthening to push for that European spot & the next minute your chairman is telling you that safety is achieved, your job is done & sell players now to raise funds for next seasons signings
As happened in our 1st season up when Jewell just insisted on talking about safety, when Whelan said & acted the way he did I think it transferred on to the players as “job done” lads & they slacked off
Cattermole also missed the vast majority of the second half of the season either through suspension or injuryWhat we have now IMO is a situation created (in the main) by the manager & his lack of tactical flexibility amongst many other things
Possibly because they’re thinking that the club still “owes” them money from the 16 garbage home performances last season that a mere 3 good performances doesn’t even things out!!!
Actually I’m being a little harsh saying that there were 16 garbage home performances last season – IMO I’d rate 10 games & 80 minutes as garbage, 5 games as fair to middleing & 3 games & 10 minutes as reet good
On that sliding scale I’d say that the club still owes!!! ;)
Somet else I found odd on Saturday watching the game on telly (my match going now curtailed by refereeing, family commitments & moving house!!) was the 2 benches.
Ancelloti had his coaches & assistants alongside himon the front bench & they were giving constant feedback to each other
The cameras cut to a shot of Martinez & the Latics bench & Bobby’s assistants in Barrow & Jones were sat on the back row giving him no feedback – whether that’s Bobby’s choice or theirs I don’t know but I just found it bizarreIt took us a while last season to get hammered.Latics got beat 5-0 by United 3 games into last season & 4 days later Blackpool beat us 4-1.
3 games after that we got beat 4-0I wouldn’t say it took us a while to get hammered at all.
Saw some stat this morning that said Latics have conceded 25 goals in our last 6 games – Its shocking but no doubt Bobby would come out with a similar statement to that given in the “fanzine interview” last season (or it may have been the fans forum) when queried about our poor defensive record which ran along the lines of “yeah but if you take all the heavy kickings we’ve had out of our stats thay actually look pretty good”He forever talks about learning lessons but I don’t think he’s learnt any from his mistakes the entire time he’s been here
Bobs to do list.2 Organise the defence. (How boyce isn’t getting a game is beyond me)
Emmerson Boyce started last week’s game against Blackpool, we were 3-0 down by half-time & getting torn apart down both flanks resulting in him being hauled off after 45 minutes
That could be why he isn’t getting a game!!All I can say to that Griff is that you really must have hated watching latics under Steve Bruce coz in my 23 years of following Latics in all 4 divisions I don’t think I’ve witnessed a worse attempt at playing football than what we’re seeing under Martinez (& I include the year & a bit of Kenny Swain’s reign in that too)
As people are probably aware I have no problem with 4-5-1 as a system if its played properly with players capable of operating that system but at present Latics don’t.
The earlier poster is correct IMO when he states that a big problem with it is the 2 wide men in the midfield 5. I remember watching Rodallega in a game against United at the end of the 08/09 season – for United’s winner you could see that he didn’t track United’s full back when he ran up the pitch & it meant our left back got overlapped & United scored their winner. The pundit on Sky picked up on it too. On Saturday (& I forget which goal it was for) exactly the same thing happened so in the 1 year, 3 months & 8 days since that happened (The vast majority of which has been under Martinez) he has still not been coached to do that – & that’s coz he is by nature a centre forward so I’m baffled as to why Bobby is determined to turn him into a left winger.
Boselli isn’t a one man up front kind of centre forward & you can see that after 2 feckin games but Bobby will persist in playing him there in the same system
If any team finds themselves 3-0 down after 51 minutes I wouldn’t expect to see them plodding on with the same formatiom & same system of play. I’d expect to see em try & change things round to attempt to haul themselves back into the game – When the same thing happened to Latics on Saturday Bobby kept things exactly the same until we’d gone 4-0 down (although in fairness he’d been trying to make a change for a few minutes) and when the change did come it was simply like for like positional changes
What the feck will it take for him to realise that “his way” isn’t working???For the first time on Saturday I found myself agreeing with Mark Lawrenson when he summed up our game & said in his first sentence “they’ve learnt absolutely nothing from the mistakes they made last week”.
He summed up the whole of Martinez’s reign in one sentence therePat McGibbon
Terry Cooke
Keith Gillespie
Phil Hughes(that’s about as many as i can remember over the last 23 years)
Not on one at all with anybody VAT – I’d be saying the same if anybody else had written that original post
The reason being that I know that Wigan has a very low ethnic minority population but (IMO) surely seeing someone of any faith or race, no matter how infrequently that may occur, shouldn’t in this day & age be deemed unusual enough to warrant a messageboard thread.
Its nothing personal VAT but to me just reinforces a bit of an inward looking, uncosmopolitan & lack of cultural experience that many outsiders have of Wigan – not that I’m saying that was your intention nor that it is a true reflection of Wigan
On different note, any particular reason for the British Friekorps propaganda poster on your avatar?
There were about 280,000 jews living in Britain in 2008 against a population of 61,400,000 which makes the jewish population of Britain around 0.5% of the total
If Wigan Borough has a population of about 350,000 then you can assume that there will be around 1750 jews living in the Borough – give or take a few due to higher population concentrations in certain areas
Or out of Latics crowd last weekend of 16,500 there would have been around 83 jews in the crowd
Its shouldn’t be unusual therefore to travel to Haigh Hall & and see some Jewish people
Just a bit baffled as to why seeing some people of jewish faith whilst out in Wigan merits a messageboard thread
Most stories linking any club with any player are made up by player’s agents or the selling club to try & drum up a bit of interest or by the buying club to try & turn a player’s head
Just coz Latics aren’t linked with anyone does not mean that they aint talking to players/putting bids in all the time
I’ve no doubt more players will come in before 1st September – whether they’ll be any good is a different matter
